Secret of a happy childhood

The behaviour of children is directly affected by the amount of time parents devote to reciting them stories, rhymes and songs, according to a study.

Youngsters who spend the most time on these activities -as well as playing with letters and numbers --were found to be more cooperative, confident and sociable.

Presenting the findings of the Government-backed study yesterday, Professor Edward Melhuish said children whose days were structured - including regular bedtimes - appeared to learn to become more co-operative.

And spending time on books, songs and rhymes helps children achieve higher scores in ability tests, at least until the youngster has started infant school.

'The educational environment of the home had several powerful effects associated with increased co- operation, increased confidence and peer sociability and lower anti-social tendencies,' said the professor, who is based at Birkbeck College in London.

'We found a slight tendency for more highly-educated, high-status parents to go in for more of this learning activity at home.

'But it was only a moderate relationship, indicating that there are many poorly educated parents who are doing quite a lot of this work and quite a lot of highly-educated parents who are doing hardly any at all.'

Children without brothers or sisters are likely to be more dis-obedient and have problems making friends, according to the results of the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education project.

An only child's problems stem from the fact that they miss out on the vital social skills they could have gained from being around a brother or sister.

The research also revealed that children with one or two siblings are more confident and perform better at school than youngsters born into bigger families.

Children with three or more siblings were more likely to dis-play anti-social behaviour, such as name- calling and hitting other children.

Professor Melhuish said: 'The most advantage accrues to those who have one or two siblings rather than either none or three or more.

'The increased peer activity that happens when you have brothers or sisters may increase some aspects of social behaviour, while having a lot of siblings reduces the amount of parental attention given to each one.'